


Blink and You'll Miss It

by QuixoticAxiom



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Mature later in the work, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, confusion over soul mates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-23 10:18:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16617086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuixoticAxiom/pseuds/QuixoticAxiom
Summary: Soulmates AU where the date when a person meets their soulmate is marked on their arm.Tony always thought the soul mark system was flawed but didn't realize the full extent of its failure until his soul day falls on the day of the incident, and he is left without a clue of who his soulmate is. He had never put much stock in the system anyway but now there was no hope, he supposed he was just doomed to be a lonely playboy forever.





	1. Blink and You'll Miss It

Steve and Bucky were in Kindergarten when they first learned about Soul Marks, the little set of numbers that most adults had on their wrist. The teacher explained that when it showed up it would tell them the day that they would meet their soulmate for the first time. Some kids in their class already had them and they ran around in the schoolyard comparing dates and scratching out the math in the dirt to see how many years they had until they found their other half. 

Why some people got them later than others wasn’t fully understood, but the prevailing theory was that a formative event had to occur to set the person on a path to meet their soul mate before the mark would appear. Steve’s appeared the day after his mother died. For just a moment he was excited when it prickled into existence on his arm until he saw the date. May 3rd, 2012. He would be ninety-six. 

Not long after that Bucky knocked on his door out of breath. When He saw Steve’s rolled up sleeve he smiled. 

“You too?” he asked. Steve nodded though he felt no excitement. He began to roll his sleeve back down “C’mon Stevie! Bucky said. It can’t be as bad as mine.” He flashed Steve his mark. Whatever was on his wrist wasn’t in English. “I have no idea what it says.” He grabbed Steve’s arm and looked at it for a minute slightly stumped.

“I’ll be ninety-six,” Steve said to spare him from doing the math. They went to the library that afternoon and after some confusion, figured you that Bucky’s mark wasn’t much better. January 16th of 2008. Even though Steve felt bad for Bucky he was a little relieved that they were looking at the same prospect of a lonely life. 

“Hey...” Bucky said after double checking the Cyrillic translation and the math. “They showed up on the same day, that must mean we stay pretty close, yeah?” He smiled. Steve smiled back.

“Here’s to eighty more years.” He said. Bucky raised his hand as if making a toast and then ran off to find books on Russia.

The war began, and friends went off to fight, and that was when Steve learned the bad side of the soul mark arrangement. Just because you had a date didn’t mean you were guaranteed to meet your soul make. Men went to war and soul marks disappeared from the arms of people they hadn’t even met yet. People posted ads in the paper wanting to know who they had lost. Hoping the family member would recognize the description of the matching mark and reach out. Sometimes the ads ran in the paper before the letters made it home to the families. Every day he checked his holding his breath hoping it hadn’t vanished overnight.

\--

Tony hated Soul Marks. They were the least efficient system possible. The date to find his one true love marked on his arm. Which would be fine and semi-straightforward, except sometimes they changed, and no one knew why. It drove some people crazy. Checking to see if their every decision brought them closer to or further away from their soul mate. 

Both of Tony’s parents had lost their marks in the war before they met the person it was attached to. Tony thought they were really the lucky ones, free to do whatever they wanted, no bullshit magical tattoos dictating their fate.

His had been there since he was five, from when he finished building his first car engine from scratch. He was too young to know he should care about it. But he ran to show his dad the car engine, sleeves rolled up and arms covered in grease. His father froze when he saw his arm and looked like he would be ill. Tony later decided his father was simply jealous, though he couldn’t fathom why, knowing he had a soulmate, that he wouldn’t meet till he was almost forty was incredibly stressful. His never changed until he woke up in the cave he noticed it had shifted earlier by a few weeks. He almost laughed at how little of an effect it had 

Worse than the changing though was that there was no way of knowing who his soul mate was except to ask every single person he met on his soul day if it was theirs as well. And if he didn’t realize when he met them there was little to do about it.

Some people said they could feel when the date changed, a little tickle or sting. Tony’s nanny as called it ‘the strings of fate weaving together’ Others said they could always fell a small amount of warmth radiating from their mark. Tony’s was always cold and numb compared to the skin around it. 

As time went on there were some days he almost forgot about it, and when he realized he was happier not thinking about it. He began to wear a thick bracelet right over it, so he couldn’t see the letters that looked as if they were from a typewriter, “May 3rd, 2012.”

\--

When Steve met Peggy, his heart hurt from knowing that she was not the one, she was seventy years too early, and her soul day less than five years away. He loved her dearly and couldn’t understand how she couldn’t be the one, but it was there inked on both their wrists clear as day.

When bucky died he sat there in disbelief, he had known no one was guaranteed to survive to their soul day but he had let himself see their far dated tattoos as some kind of assurance that they would wait for their soul mates together.

His mark not matching Peggy’s didn’t stop him from pining for her or kissing her before he hopped on the plane. As he watched the water draw closer he hoped fate had been kind to her and given her someone who would survive the war. He also felt guilt, he wondered if his soulmate had their mark yet if they would know he was gone. He tried not to think too hard about it in those last seconds, there was nothing else he could do now. As he blacked out surrounded by cold water the last air bubbles that left his lungs held the words ‘I’m sorry.’

\--

Steve woke up in the future, to bright lights and a room where everything seemed just a little off. He looked down at his arm and his soul mark was still there, bold as ever. He felt a moment of relief but then I hit him, he knew the batter was going to strike out before the pitch was thrown, he had watched this game. He ran. Hours later after processing what the agents had told him, that he was in the future. That the world was a different place now he looked down at his arm and realized his soul day was only a few months away. He should have felt happy but all he felt was dread. He was a broken man now and his soulmate didn’t deserve that either, wherever they were.

HE spent hours beating his hands to a pulp against kevlar punching bags. He didn't even bother to wrap his bloody knuckles when he was done, they would heal by morning. He did, however, wrap a thin strip of cloth around his soul mark so no one could see it. He hoped it would make him think about it less. It didn't.


	2. The Best We Can

Tony hadn’t looked at his mark in two weeks, but he had known it was coming, and if he got up on the morning of May 3rd and spent a little extra time on his morning routine, well he was only human. Even he couldn’t help but have a little hope for true love. He was just finishing brushing his teeth, for an unreasonably long amount of time when Jarvis addressed him over the loudspeaker.

“Sir, Director Fury requests your presence.”

“Not today, Jarvis.”  Tony began to trim his goatee.

“Sir, he says this is a code 616.”  Tony froze. 616, _potentially world ending_. Tony swore.  And threw down his electric razor.

“Do you have coordinates Jarvis?” as he sprinted out of the door.

“I have programmed them into Mark VII sir. It is ready in the launch bay.” Tony sprinted, the earlier thought of the day had totally evacuated from his mind.  As he ran Jarvis played security footage a few feet in front of him. He could tell it was going to be a rough few days.

\--

Steve knew it must be something serious when Nick fury came to personally invite him on a mission.  Steve grabbed his things and boarded the transport provided for him. In the back of his mind, a little voice nagged that today was his soul day, but he shut it down.  Duty came first he told himself.  He read the mission file an watched the security video, he felt more confident, this was more familiar, this was something he could do, this was something he felt comfortable in unlike so much of the future.

\--

Tony pointed the missile up into the void and he knew he had to go with it, He told Jarvis to call Pepper because she was all he had.  The phone call displayed the date and time code and he remembered, today was supposed to be the day. He felt guilt more than sadness, He was sure many people’s arms would be blank after today, all people he couldn’t save.  He figured it was for the best though; that it was him up here and not someone else. As the darkness closed in he told himself his soulmate would be better off this way, without him to put them in danger.  He told himself that he was keeping them safe by doing this, and that was all he could do.

\--

Steve’s arm felt as though it had burst into flames but he had to grunt through and keep fighting, Tony would get through,  Then maybe they would have a chance of winning. That was the best he could do for himself, for the world.  The portal closed, and all the soldiers collapsed. But the pain on his arm did not stop.

Soldiers rushed in and Steve only hoped that they would make it to his soul mate in time, He would check the hospitals later he told himself, and then If he had to, the morgues. He looked up at where the portal had closed and saw Tony Stark falling from the sky.  He clutched his burning arm to his chest and ran to where he fell.  The burning stopped but he didn’t look to see if his mark was still there or not. He ran to Tony, and Tony jolted awake.

“What’d I miss,” he asked.

“We won,” Steve told him. _but I don’t yet know what I’ve lost_.  

\--

While the rest of the crew was eating an the destroyed restaurant, he snuck into the bathroom, miraculously still intact and rolled up the sleeve to his suit. His mark was still there, He sighed in relief and then for a second an insane thought crossed his mind, His arm had begun to burn the second tony went through the portal in the sky, he wondered, but he quickly shook it off, he had helped hundreds of people out of the rubble today, and met hundreds more on the shield helicarrier. The hope blossomed viciously again, but he realized, Howard had seen his mark, he hadn’t bothered to cover it back then, had It been Tony, Howard would have told his son, Tony would have known. He sighed and walked back out to join the group.

As soon as he could he excused himself and went to go help at the triage station, He worked there until midnight but still didn’t find anyone with the same mark as his.  At 12:01 he claimed exhaustion and walked out into the wreckage of midtown New York.

There was a message on his phone, which he still didn’t know how to use from Natasha.  All it contained was an address and the word debrief.   

He found a bike abandoned on the street still mostly intact—one of the handles was a little bent and began a trip across town to the location.  The blocks blurred by as he pedaled the bike beyond any speed it was meant to go. At some point, as he felt tears begin to roll down his cheeks, he had made it all this way, all this time, just to miss it. He knew he couldn’t have done anything differently, the world had needed him; he had saved the world. They had won. So why did it feel like he had lost?

\--

Almost (mostly) dying had a way of distracting people from other things, it wasn’t till the next morning that Tony really realized he had missed them. His mind raced. He fumbled with the thick metal cuff he wore over his mark and looked at hoping it had changed without him noticing, but it had stayed the same. Yesterday had been his soul day and he had no idea who they were. He felt panic set in.  He tried to admonish himself, this had always been the plan hadn’t it? To pretend his soulmate didn’t exist, to pretend that happiness didn’t have an expiration date marked into his flesh. He supposed deep down even if he actively tried to not care he always figured his soul day would come and he would meet the person, he would know, and would have simply saved himself all the angst and worry up to that point. But here he was, alone, expired, trying not to have a panic attack about it.

An hour later, six a.m., god he had woken up early, he had managed to pull himself together and had a shower he headed downstairs to the kitchen of his upstate mansion he was putting everyone up at till all the debriefing and paperwork was done. He wasn’t totally surprised to find Steve up and puttering around the kitchen, gloriously sweaty, presumably from an early morning run. He was wearing a hoodie and gym shorts his sleeves rolled up but tony noticed he too wore a cuff around his wrist obscuring his soul mark.  It looked like old worn leather and Tony wondered how he had come upon something so aged in the few months he had been back in the world. Tony scuffed his feet at the doorway and Steve quickly yanked his sleeves down over the cuff.   _Sensitive then._ Tony wondered if his soulmate was still alive, withering away in some nursing home or if they were long gone. Either way, he felt bad for Steve, worse than he felt for himself if he was being honest.

“Do you want some eggs?” Steve asked.  He sounded exhausted defeated, dead.

“No thanks, Cap, but if you have some coffee I’ll take it.” Tony walked further into the kitchen and leaned up against the counter. Steve grabbed a pot and poured a cup tony took it gratefully and rooted around the cabinets until he found sugar, he scooped three spoonful’s into the cup and stirred before happily drinking.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a sugar in your coffee person,” Steve said.

“Eh,” Tony shrugged. “It guarantees I get at least a few calories in every hour.” He drank deeply and Steve gave him a concerned almost fatherly look that was turned humorous by the eggs in his mouth. He gestured to the skillet

“I can make more?” he said.

Tony just shook his head, and then moved to change the subject

“You were out late last night,” he said

“I stayed back to help with medical triage” He got a weird expression on his face when he said it.

“Shit, Cap, it’s not like you didn’t already do enough,” Tony said. He started another pot of coffee, the bags under steves eyes seemed to be growing by the second, o _r maybe he was just focusing on them_ …

“Please, call me Steve.” He said

“Okay, Steve,” Tony said though it felt a little weird in his mouth.

“What now?” Steve said though maybe not to Tony.

“We rebuild,"  _The best we can._


	3. Welcome Home

Months passed, and Stark Tower went back up. It was Avengers Tower now he supposed. He put out an invite for the team to come back and they all showed up within the week, except for Steve. He wrote Tony a letter. _An actual letter. With an actual stamp._ Saying he was taking some time to road trip across the country, that’d he’d be back in a month. He said he’d join them then and he wished Tony well. Tony couldn’t help but smile at the excruciatingly perfect penmanship or the precision with which the stamp was placed on the outside of the envelope. He pulled out his phone and sent Steve a text.

Tony: So old fashioned. You know text messages send instantaneously?

Steve: Sometimes it's nice to take the time to do something by hand for someone. It shows appreciation.

Tony: Well, in that case, I expect postcards.

Steve didn’t reply to his last text but a week later a postcard showed up in the mail. ‘Hello from Yellowstone’ it read, and on the back in Steve’s neat hand:

_Make sure you eat something today. Not just coffee._

_Best,_

_Steve_

Every few days a postcard would arrive, sometimes prompting Tony into some form of self-care, sometimes asking how he and the rest of the team was. Always signed Best, Steve.

Tony would write him back via text message. Soon a small pile of postcards cluttered his desk and If anyone looked at his text log they wouldn’t have been able to make sense of it.

Sooner than he thought possible Steve was due back to the tower within the week, and Tony sent a request for his things to be sent over from Shield. A single filing box came by courier the next day and at first Tony thought there must have been a mistake. After being assured that that was all he took it the elevator up to Steve’s floor which now seemed ridiculously large. He set the box on the coffee table and opened it gently. Inside there was a copy of the Bible, a photograph of the howling commandos and a pair of dog tags worn almost bare.

Tony gently replaced the lid to the box and whipped out his phone.

Tony: Steve, you do realize I gave you a whole floor to live on.

Tony: Shield sent over one box of your things. ONE BOX!

Tony: Tell me what you like, I’m going shopping for you. Do you like to read? Do you like Music? Are you too good for the material world?

Steve didn’t answer. So, Tony spent the rest of the day curating an online shopping list waiting for Steve’s letter to determine what he was going to buy.

He was waiting for the postman two days later and nearly ripped the letter out of his hands before running upstairs. This one wasn’t a postcard but a sealed envelope.

He carefully peeled back the flap so as to not disrupt any of Steve’s writing.

_Tony,_

_You don’t need to buy me anything. I am perfectly happy with what I have. Please don’t spend any money on me. I am so grateful for everything you have done for me already._

_Thank you for everything,_

_Steve_

_P.S. Natasha really likes chocolate and Clink likes crystals, If you really must spend money, buy them something._

At first Tony wanted to scream but then It occurred to him: if Steve knew what Natasha and Clint like maybe they would know what he liked. _They were spies they had to know_

“Jarvis! Where are the spies?” 

“Combat training room two, sir.” Tony tucked the letter into his back pocket and headed to the elevators.

He heard them before he entered the room. Well, mostly he heard Clint spewing expletives while Natasha landed hit after hit.

He walked into the room just in time to see Clint take a swing, and Natasha break several laws of physics while taking him to the ground. Natasha had her hair up in a sloppy ponytail and was barefoot, Her arms were bare and Tony couldn’t help but glance at her wrists, an ingrained habit. Where her soul mark should have been a dark rectangle was instead. He looked away quickly but he suspected she noticed.

“Stark?” She asked. Clint collapsed on the mat upon realizing she was giving him a break.

“What’s up, Tony?” He wheezed. He rolled up on to his hands and knees and slowly got up and walked over to his water bottle.

“I need your help,” Tony said. “They…um..I….ummm…” _God, he was stuttering. This isn’t that fucking hard._ “What does Steve like to do, like, in his free time?” He asked. He could have stopped there and they probably would have answered but he charged forward. “Sheild sent over his stuff and its literally like a half full shoe box and he has a whole floor and that’s just fucking depressing, and I don’t want it to be all empty when he gets here which is in less than a week.” He took a breath but now Natasha was doing that thing were she just raised her eyebrow and waited for him to say more. “I just want him to feel at home?” he added.

“He likes to read,” Clint said sparing him from further babbling “And there are, like, 70 years of books he’s missed out on. Definitely get him Harry Potter.

“He draws a lot,” Natasha said. “On everything, envelopes when he is talking on the phone, on his mission briefs. Get him some art supplies.”

Tony nodded, “Anything else?” He asked hopefully.

“Why don’t you just ask him?” Natasha asked.

“I did he said he didn’t want anything.” Tony said, “I don’t think he understands how much money I have and how not a big deal it is.”

“He’s a very proud person,” Natasha said.

“And I'm a very rich person.”

“No shit,” Clint said gesturing about the training room. “Look, just wait till he gets here then it will be easier to figure out.

“Yeah, I guess,” Tony said. “Thanks.”

As he was riding back to his lab in the elevator, he told Jarvis to order Clint ‘the biggest fucking crystal he could get in the city.’ And Natasha ‘more chocolate than she could ever eat.’

\--

Steve was in awe as he drove back into the city, looking at it like this it didn’t seem like home anymore, not by a long shot. He stopped on the outskirts where suburbs morphed into the beginning of towering urbanity to refuel his bike. As he was waiting to pay at the counter a rack of postcards caught his eye. He picked out one with a classic image of the skyline and paid for it along with the gas. He grabbed a pen from the counter and wrote on the back before carefully putting it in his jacket pocket.

He then headed into the city towards Avengers tower. He wasn’t quite ready to call it home. Though he was willing to think that one day he could.

He pulled in to the garage under the tower and found Tony there waiting for him.

“Hello.” Steve said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the postcard and handed it to Tony. A huge smile slipped across Tony's face as he read it and then slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans.

“Welcome home.” He said. "Would you like a tour?"

“Sure,” Steve said.

Tony smiled and started to walk towards the elevator.

Training rooms are on floors 60 and 61 Common area is 65 You’re floor 67” Tony said.

“Floor?” Steve asked a little bit in disbelief.

“Yeah, floor, everyone has a floor.” Tony said as if it was the most normal thing in the world. The elevator accelerated upwards without prompting and numbers flew by on the control panel. It stopped at floor 60 “My labs on 59 if you ever need to find me.” Tony said. He ushered Steve out of the elevator.

The training rooms were exquisite, state of the art, better than what shield had, When Steve said as much Tony scoffed.

“Well, I should hope so.”

They carried on to the common area and found Bruce sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper.

“Hey Steve, good to have you back,” he said.

“Good to be back.” Steve tried to mean it, but every inch of the tower was alien to him except maybe they newspaper in Bruce’s hand. Bruce gave him a knowing smile.

“Lets go.”Tony said. “more things to see” Steve waved goodbye to Bruce and followed Tony through the rest of the common area.

\--

“And now the feature event!” The doors slid open to his floor And Steve knew his mouth was hanging open but he couldn’t really stop it. The main room was massive. A large sectional sofa cordoned off part of the room with a huge TV on one wall and a bigger fireplace on the other. The space then flowed into a kitchen and bar larger than any total space he had ever lived in.

“Tony… this is..”

“Not even the exciting part!" Tony interjected. He pulled Steve into the room and the around the corner. He opened the door to what Steve could only assume was supposed to be a study but it looked more like a full-blown library, one wall was lined with books the other with thin cases he soon realized were records. Against a wall made entirely of windows, there was a large desk with an assortment of art supplies

“Tony,” Steve said quietly, “This is... too much” He felt his throat catch and he didn't quite know why. In some ways, it was perfect, but more than that, it was overwhelming

“There was great debate on how to organize things.” Tony said steamrolling through Steve’s objections. He pointed to the bookshelves. “That center case each has a shelf our recommendations. There was concern over whose shelf Harry Potter got to be on. Natasha won the rock paper scissors game.” Steve walked over to the desk and ran his fingers over the covers of one of the sketchbooks.

“I thought I said you didn’t have to buy me anything,” Steve said still in shock.

“Yeah, well I'm not really good at small gestures,” Tony said, and then a little more quietly possibly because he sensed that Steve was more than a little overwhelmed, “I’ll Leave you to explore the rest, Yeah?” Steve nodded.

“Oh, and movie night is at 7 if you want to come.” He said as he was walking out.

“Tony?”

Yeah, Ca—Steve?

“Thanks.” Tony just waved him off as he headed for the elevator.

\--

Opposite the door to the study, there was another door which Steve pushed open hesitantly, afraid of what lavish things might lay behind it. While the bathroom was extremely decadent, to the point that Steve was a little concerned, the bedroom, though huge was simply furnished and a single box sat on the bed.

“Jarvis?” Steve asked hesitantly? He’d seen, or heard rather, Tony use the voice in the ceiling but didn’t quite understand how it worked.

“Yes, Captain Rodgers?”

“Are you um, recording? in here?”

“Yes, Captain I monitor every room of Avengers Tower at all hours.”

Steve sighed “Is there a way you can… not do that?” Just in here, you can still be in the living room I guess.”

“I can turn off video surveillance if you wish, Captain; however, I will still be able to speak to you during emergency procedures such as evacuations or calls to assemble.”

“Yeah, um do that? Please.”

“Of course Captain, if you need assistance I shall still be available from the remainder of your living quarters.

“Thanks, Jarvis,” Steve said. The voice did not respond.

Steve slipped his jacket off and then unsnapped the cuff around his mark. He was starting to get a tan line which made the ink stand out all the more. The marks that once filled him with hope now made him feel nauseous, he told himself he covered it so that he didn't have to look at it. That it would help him forget, but it had weighed on his mind every second of his trip. He knew that why he really wore it was he didn't want everyone to know that he was alone, incomplete, and always would be. 

While he was on the road he had read an article about people finding their soulmates after the fact through the internet. He slipped his phone out of his pocket and pulled up a new app he had downloaded a week ago, an app he spent more time on than he cared to admit. r/NYCmissedconnections was as busy as ever, depressingly so, but within a few hours, he’d gone through all the new posts, with no luck. He checked the time, almost time for movie night. He snapped the leather cuff back on and headed to the elevators.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to get one more chapter up before Thanksgiving. This keeps getting longer despite my best efforts. (sorry, not sorry.) I might also be making some minor edits in chapter one for continuity purposes (probably tomorrow). Thanks for all of your lovely comments.


	4. A Damn Mess by Any Standard

It was raining the next morning, so Steve swam laps instead of running.  When he finished, he headed back up to his room for a shower and had to pop back into the living room to ask Jarvis how exactly the thing worked. After a mild struggle with the control panel, he managed to get just one of the three shower heads to turn on, no need to be wasteful after all. 

He took a minute to appreciate the heated floors and towel bar when he got out before wandering into his bedroom again.  He opened his closet and sighed in exasperation, just as he had the night before at the expansive selection of clothes that were behind the door.  As he put on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, he discovered that the pants were tailored to fit perfectly, a rarity with his build, though the fit was… more modern… then he was accustomed to.  He walked back out into the living room.

“Jarvis?”

“Yes, captain?”

“Is Tony awake?”

“Master Sark is already in his lab Sir, If you would like me to call him I can.”

“No, that’s fine Jarvis,” Steve said. “Has he eaten breakfast yet?”

“No, sir.” Steve was sure he was imagining it, but he thought he heard a hint of concern in the machine's voice.

Steve put his phone in his pocket and headed toward the elevator. He pressed the button for the common area as the doors slid closed.

The refrigerator in the common kitchen was extremely large with four doors in total.  Steve spent a minute rummaging through it before finding eggs, milk, and bacon.

“Is anyone else awake?” Steve asked.

“Agent Romanov is but she has already eaten sir.” Steve nodded in acknowledgment.  He started the coffeemaker and placed two pans on the stove range and began cracking eggs into one of them as the smell of coffee filled the room.

\--

“Sir?” Jarvis’s voice cut through his music and he sighed. It was bad enough that the Stark phone prototypes the SI engineers had sent him were so bad he had decided it would be more productive to start from scratch, but just as he was starting to like the circuit board layout projected in front of him he was interrupted.

“Yeah Jarv?”

“Captain Rodgers is requesting entry, Sir.” Tony swiped away the design and pulled down the sleeves of his shirt which had been rolled up to his elbows so they covered the cuff around his wrist.

“Let him in J.,” he said as he looked around at his workspace.  It was, by any standard, a damn mess.

“Tony?” He heard Steve ask from the doorway.

“This way.” He shouted and waited for Steve to navigate around the various shelves and toolboxes to find him. He expected to see Steve in his typical grandpa clothes walking about with the slack-jawed look he got some time when confronted with large quantities of technology.  What he did not expect was to see Steve dressed in distressingly well-fitting jeans and an even more sinful t-shirt, with his hair still slightly wet and rumpled. _And was he carrying a plate and a mug? Why was he carrying a plate?_

“I see you found your closet,” Tony said.  He tried not to look Steve up and down _Oh, God he tried._  Some efforts, however, were just doomed to fail.  Thankfully, Steve didn’t seem to notice.

“I brought you breakfast,” Steve said. He set down the plate and mug and the noise finally drew Tony’s attention from, well, the rest of it.

“Thanks, Cap,” Tony said. He grabbed the coffee and took a long sip. It was perfect, exactly how he always made it. “Wow, good memory.”  He turned back to his workbench and pulled back up the circuit board with a wave of his hand.

“Tony, you need to eat,” Steve said. He sounded slightly grumpy, _why did he care? Why did he look so fucking gorgeous?_

“Too busy right now”  He waived at the schematics. Steve swatted at the projection gracelessly and it went away again. _He shouldn’t be able to do that?_

“Food first,” Steve said, and Tony sighed.  He knew when he was being conspired against. He put a fork full in his mouth, and it was good, excellent, in fact.  … _How was it fair that someone that attractive could also cook? Fuck..._ He took another bite.

“Why do you care if I eat breakfast?”  He asked with a mouth full of food.

“You’re my teammate. “Steve said. “It's my job to make sure you stay at least semi-functional.” He smiled. “Also the way you are inhaling those eggs don’t even try telling me you weren’t hungry.”

“Hunger is a mental construct meant to distract me from being productive,” Tony said but he kept eating. Steve chuckled.

“Sure, Tony. Whatever you say.” When Tony was done he took the plate back up with him and Tony didn’t even try to pretend he didn’t watch Steve’s hips until he was out of sight.

\--

Tony knew there were worse things than being the keynote speaker at a charity gala, but he still hated it. The schmoozing, the fake laughter, the happy couples with their soul marks bare on their arms letting everyone know they were living their best lives.  It was worse now that he knew that would never be him, now that he knew he had actually cared about t way more than he had ever let himself acknowledge.

He had given his speech, and everyone had applauded politely. And now came the socializing, that part that really brought in the money, and that was truly the worst.  He had taken up a position by the bar because, well honestly wasn’t that what was expected of him anyway?

In the back of his head he knew this was his first charity gala since the incident since he missed his soul day, and the first time he had drank since then, and he was sure Pepper was aware of it too with how closely she was watching him.  He was sure she was trying to be subtle but he noticed all the same.  At his fifth, _or maybe his 8 th, what the fuck did it matter anyway, _drink she came up to him and told him the car was waiting for him outside.  For a second, he was offended but then he realized this was his out. He followed her and hoped she didn’t notice when he stumbled a little bit right before the stairs, _but of course she did. she always did._

He stumbled into the elevator even though he didn’t really remember getting there and slapped the panel. When the door opened, he took a few steps down the hall before he realized he was in the common area instead of his own floor.

“Well, that’s not right...” He mumbled. He spun around and ran into a very solid figure. For a second, he just let himself rest there against the firm warmth of… _wait..._ He looked up to see Steve looking very concerned and realized that all that was holding him up was Steve’s hands on both of his shoulders.

“El capieeeetaaan.” He exclaimed.

“Tony?” Steve sounded really worried. _Steve shouldn’t sound so worried. He was too pretty to worry. He might get wrinkles._

“Don’t worry spangles, just taking a little drunken wander, I’ll head to bed now.”

“Tony, its six am.”

“Nonsense, I just left the gala, it's like two,” Tony said, and he felt oh so very tired. Too tired to worry about what Steve was saying. Steve who was so warm. Steve who was so strong.  He gave up trying to stand all together and collapsed into Steve, who caught him because of course, he did. Tony didn’t worry about a thing after that.

\--

Steve headed to the common area to make breakfast a little earlier than usual and heard heavy feet stomping down the hall ahead of him. Followed by an unintelligible mumble. He turned the corner to find Tony in what must have at one point been a well put together suit but now it was untucked and what looked suspiciously like pizza sauce was smeared over the tails.  He turned around and ran straight into Steve and said a few things Steve couldn’t really understand through the slurring.  Steve caught him and attempted to right him but Tony overcorrected and began to fall again So Steve just held him against his chest.

“Tony, it's six a.m.” Tony mumbled something else and Steve caught something in the vein of ‘left gala… two” before he totally collapsed.

“Tony?” Steve said.  He squatted down and lifted Tony over his shoulders and walked him to the couch where he gently deposited him. 

“Where has he been all night Jarvis?”

“Master Stark left the charity gala four hours ago, at which time he had his driver drive him to five separate pizza placed because the first four did not possess his desired cheese to sauce ratio. As you might be able to infer he was drinking all the while.”

Steve sighed and rolled Tony on his side. He went to the kitchen and got a glass of water and a bottle of Advil from the cupboard and set it on the table next to Tony.  He then gently shook Tony’s shoulder until the man began to grumble and wake up.

“Wahhh?” Tony said.

“You can go back to sleep in a second,” Steve said, he handed Tony the water glass and two pills. And prompted him to raise them to his mouth.  “You’re gonna feel like shit in a few hours no matter what but this might help.”

“You swore.” Tony giggled, “You can't swear you’re a superhero” but then did what he was told. The second Steve took the now empty glass from him had he flopped back on to the couch. Steve repositioned him to his side.  He told Jarvis to let him know if Tony was having any trouble and went into the kitchen to make breakfast. Even though he knew Jarvis was watching he couldn’t help but check in every few minutes. After he ate, he settled on to the chair across from where Tony slept with a book and waited for him to wake up.

 

 


End file.
